U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [383]
"You must always love me," Agnes would say, "because God doesn't seem to want me to have any little babies of my own."
Margie had to go over on the train every day to go to school at Rockaway Park. She got along wel in the grade-school and liked the teachers and the books and the sing-ing but the children teased because her clothes were al homemade and funnylooking and because she was a mick and a Catholic and lived in a house built on stilts. After she'd been Goldilocks in the school play one Christmas, that was al changed and she began to have a better time at school than at home.
At home there was always so much housework to do,
Agnes was always washing and ironing and scrubbing be-cause Fred hardly ever brought in any money any more.
-166-He'd lurch into the house drunk and dirty and smel ing of stale beer and whiskey and curse and grumble about the food and why didn't Agnes ever have a nice piece of steak any more for him like she used to when he got home from the city and Agnes would break down, blubbering, "What am I going to use for money?" Then he would cal her dirty names, and Margie would run into her bedroom and slam the door and sometimes even pul the bureau across it and get into bed and lie there shaking. Sometimes when Agnes was putting breakfast on the table, always in a fluster for fear Margie would miss the train to school, Agnes would have a black eye and her face would be swol en and puffy where he'd hit her and she'd have a meek sorryforherself look Margie hated. And Agnes
would be muttering al the time she watched the cocoa and condensed milk heating on the stove, "God knows I've done my best and worked my fingers to the bone for him.
. . . Holy.saints of God, things can't go on like this." Al Margie's dreams were about running away.
In summer they would sometimes have had fun if it
hadn't been for always dreading that Fred would take a bit too much. Fred would get the rowboats out of the boat-house the first sunny day of spring and work like a demon calking and painting them a fresh green and whistle as he worked, or he would be up before day digging clams or catching shiners for bait with a castingnet, and there was money around and big pans of chowder Long Island style and New England style simmering on the back of the
stove, and Agnes was happy and singing and always in a bustle fixing shoredinners and sandwiches for fishermen, and Margie would go out sometimes with fishingparties, and Fred taught her to swim in the clear channel up under the railroad bridge and took her with him barefoot over the muddy flats clamming and after softshel crabs, and sportsmen with fancy vests who came down to rent a boat would often give her a quarter. When Fred was in a sober
-167-spel it was lovely in summer, the warm smel of the marshgrass, the freshness of the tide coming in through the inlet, the itch of saltwater and sunburn, but then as soon as he'd gotten a little money together Fred would get to drinking and Agnes's eyes would be red al the time and the business would go to pot. Margie hated the way Agnes's face got ugly and red when she cried, she'd tel herself that she'd never cry no matter what happened when she grew up.
Once in a while during the good times Fred would say he was going to give the family a treat and they'd get al dressed up and leave the place with old man Hines, Joe Hines's father, who had a wooden leg and big bushy white whiskers, and go over on the train to the beach and walk along the boardwalk to the amusementpark at Hol and's. It was too crowded and Margie would be scared of get-ting something on her pretty dress and there was such a glare and men and women with sunburned arms and legs and untidy hair lying out in the staring sun with sand over them, and Fred and Agnes would romp around in their bathingsuits like the others. Margie was scared of the big spuming surf crashing over her head, even when Fred held her in his arms she was scared and then it was terrible he'd swim so far out.
Afterwards they'd get back itchy into their clothes and walk along the boardwalk shril ing with peanutwagons and reeking with the smel of popcorn and saltwater taffy and hotdogs and mustard and beer al mixed up with the surf and the clanking roar of the rol ercoaster and the steamcal iope from the merrygoround and so many horrid people pushing and shoving, stepping on your toes. She was too little to see over them. It was better when Fred hoisted her on his shoulder though she was too old to ride on her father's shoulder in spite of being so smal for her age and kept pul ing at her prettv paleblue frock to keep it from getting above her knees.